POLITICS: A clear vote by majority

Jean McLaughlin’s letter (News Guardian, October 13) is one more nail in what many hope is the coffin of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party – though his leadership, despite their best efforts, is showing a stubborn refusal to die gracefully.

Ms McLaughlin recounts many of the criticisms of Corbyn’s leadership with which we have now become familiar. In brief, Jeremy Corbyn, far from having been stabbed in the back by members of his own parliamentary party, is said to be “the architect of his own misfortune”.

The ‘no confidence’ vote on Corbyn was indeed triggered by his sacking of Hilary Benn, but the latter made no secret of the fact that he was gathering support among MPs to oust Corbyn from the leadership – a move of which Corbyn would have been the victim, hardly the architect.

The fact is that ever since Corbyn’s original election as party leader, there has been a considerable and powerful faction in the parliamentary Labour party and among Labour grandees, who are now prepared to stop at nothing to reverse the clear, and recently reconfirmed, decision of a majority of Labour party members.